Wind Wednesday – Budget Backlash

Wind Wednesday – Hot Air in Ottawa’s Budget – But Progress in Ontario

To say there was ‘hot-air’ regarding Renewable energy in Ottawa, after the release of the Budget on Tuesday is actually giving too much credit. It was hardly mentioned at all.

But let me back-track a bit — During the Paris Climate agreement, the UN had some pretty harsh words for Canada — Canada is one of the biggest laggards, with the UN saying that not only are Canada’s existing targets too low, it does not yet have the policies in place to even meet them. (Ouch. ) So we signed onto the Paris Accord… and promised to be a climate leader…

Catherine McKenna

I don’t like to complain about specific MP’s, but I have to talk about Catherine McKenna. Catherine was appointed Minister of Environment and Climate Change. She helped negotiate the Paris Agreement on the Canadian side, and secured Canada’s first plan with provinces, territories and Indigenous peoples to address climate change and grow a clean economy. (All good things in my opinion)

BUT! — She is also the member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre. – The federal government is committing $73.3 million — a couple million more than expected — for a super library that will see the Ottawa Public Library partner with Library and Archives Canada in a new 216,000-square-foot complex expected to cost $168 million. — “We actually got a little more than we were anticipating.” – Said Mayor Jim Watson (Well that’s good news for Ottawa! I wonder how that happend???)

This just happens to be Catherine’s riding… and was essentially an election promise….. Glad to see priority is on reelection, and not what the priorities of the Minister of the ENVIRONMENT……

What did she get done for the Environment in the budget?… after all that spending… the only money I could see on “wind projects” was the re-distribution of the carbon tax money BACK into the provinces for wind projects… like the ones happening in Alberta… That doesn’t appear to be “new-spending” money like the rest of the billions of dollars… but ALBERTA money funding ALBERTA projects…. (Correct me if i’m wrong, please!)

Credit to Ontario

Ok, now to some good wind news.

Pattern Development and Nigig Power Corporation have got their $1 billion in financing to build the largest wind project in Ontario on a reserve south of Sudbury.

The 300-megawatt wind project will be located on Henvey Inlet First Nation Reserve No. 2 on the northeast shore of the Georgian Bay.

Lots of “largest” for this project if all goes to plan — It will be the largest wind project in Ontario. It will be the largest on-reserve wind installation in Canada, It will have the largest (well, the highest) hub heights in North America.

“We aren’t just building a wind farm, we’re building an economy,” said Ken Noble, president and CEO of Nigig. “The net proceeds over the next two decades of operations will provide the financial resources to transform the local economy, expand all community services, relieve poverty, and create employment.”

From my sources at Vestas, it is supposed to be about 87 Vestas turbines.

The project will create almost up to 500 jobs during construction. Once operational, the project will employ about 15 permanent full-time workers and also create more than 100 ongoing indirect jobs. (Sounds good!)

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WEEKLY SPECIAL GUEST

Cold nights, warm homes! It’s cold in British Columbia, and not just by BC standards! Winter storm warnings, snow fall warnings, cold weather advisories all trickled throughout parts of the province the last week and more as some parts of the province hit temperatures in the minus 20s and